A Christchurch Plan For Immigration?

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32126, 23 October 1969, Page 14

A Christchurch Plan For Immigration?

The Mayor of Christchurch (Mr Guthrey) and the president of the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association (Mr Bull) are to be commended on their bold plan for a Christchurch immigration scheme. Despite demands from other employers’ organisations, the Government is not expanding assisted immigration, but is prepared to subsidise many more immigrants recruited by individual employers. The city or trade group (or individual employer) which first avails itself of this offer will get a useful advantage over its rivals.

The individual employer pays nothing to secure the services of an assisted immigrant, but is required to pay §l6O towards the air fare of a worker recruited under the employers’ subsidy scheme. Many employers, acknowledging that their share of the 500 assisted immigrants expected this year will be negligible, are prepared to subsidise the fares of suitable migrants. Particularly for manufacturing firms which are paying tax at the maximum rate and able to claim export tax incentives, the investment of $l6O on a skilled worker should be recouped within months. Some New Zealand employers have sent recruiting teams abroad; but only the largest employers can afford this outlay. If all the employers in the Christchurch area—where there are now more than 500 vacancies—contributed towards the expense of sending a recruiting officer to London and maintaining an office there, the cost of this recruiting would be widely spread: the burden on any individual employer would be negligible if the expense were subsidised by the Government and—hopefully—by all local bodies in the Christchurch metropolitan area. Provided sufficient guarantees could be raised from the Government, local bodies, and a few large firms, it should be possible to finance the scheme mainly by a procun*ment fee of $lO or $2O paid by an employer each time he engaged a worker recruited abroad. Mr Bull sees a possibility of recruiting skilled labour from Canada and the West Coast of the United States—a possibility by no means remote notwithstanding the wide margin between North American and Christchurch wage rates. Unemployment is high in North America, by New Zealand standards: and the prospect of secure employmentmight well tempt many family men in Canada and California. It is essential for the success of any immigration drive in North America, however, that migrants realise before they leave home that material standards of living are, on average, lower than, in North America. Security of employment, a generous welfare system, a good State education system, freedom from racial strife—these are the selling points for a New Zealand recruiting mission in North America.

For immediate, almost assured, results, Christchurch should appoint its first immigration officer in London. He would need to work closely with the Government’s immigration officers there, preferably from headquarters in New Zealand House. The Government’s assisted immigration quota of 500 should readily be filled; later applicants could be referred to the Christchurch immigration officer. He should be appointed as soon as possible, while the labour scarcity in Christchurch is acute, before the end of the English winter, and before the end of the New Zealand immigration year next March—and before any other city or province steals a march on Christchurch.